


this blue world

by Hideous_Sun_Demon



Category: Designated Survivor (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-05 11:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17917826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hideous_Sun_Demon/pseuds/Hideous_Sun_Demon
Summary: Trauma, as it turns out, isn’t something that can just be ignored out of existence. Aaron finds this out the hard way.





	this blue world

**Author's Note:**

> You know what’s 110% better than ignoring the potential fallout of something as traumatic as being held hostage for a character as stubbornly stoic as Aaron?
> 
> Actually exploring it.

Today was a success.

It hadn’t felt that way until now. He’d been holed up in Command Ops since the previous evening, dealing with their most recent crisis of the week: a journalist crew in Syria taken hostage by some Al-Nusra rebels. A tense situation, to be sure, but everything had turned out an undeniable, objective success. In the end, the compound had been stormed, and by noon all the hostages had been rescued; alive and well. Aaron had barked his orders, coordinated communications, and done his damndest to ensure that the entire operation had gone off without a hitch. Situation defused in under 12 hours, with no American blood spilt? Yes, Aaron decided; a good day.

Even if, Aaron mused as he strolled down the hall away from Command Ops, the entire ordeal had left him feeling acutely uneasy in the back of his mind. Nothing serious, it was just—it had been disturbingly easy to draw some parallels in his mind. It had been hard not to pick up on certain little details; like how the compound that the hostages were held in looked so much like in Cuba, or the way that the captors themselves could have been the same. Different faces, of course, but it was that roughness, that cold, sneering callousness that was so bone-chillingly familiar. And the terror on the hostages’ faces—that had been familiar as well.

Regardless, he’d remained as objective as ever—he had to, even when those thoughts would keep bobbing up like apples in a barrel. They had just been another distraction to push past. And, really, it didn’t matter now. All of that was over, and now he could just go back to work.

Which would be easier if it wasn’t so goddamn hot.

This awful humidity seemed to have come out of nowhere. He mustn’t have noticed it before. But it was more than that, Aaron mused as he surreptitiously juggled the notes he had for his debrief with Seth so he could wipe his slick palms against his trousers. He was feeling unsettled all over; his heart was pumping out a rhythm so agitated it was growing uncomfortable, and even his fingers were jittering out an unsteady beat. This, he grumbled internally, was the bitter consequence of drinking over eight cups of coffee across ten hours. He hadn’t noticed anything physically off while he was in the midst of dealing with Syria, but that was how it tended to go— he’d slip into a cool, unfettered calm when crisis-mode was called for. Aaron could probably handle a terrorist attack with a gunshot wound to his stomach and not even notice til he was done. Now though, everything was catching up to him. He’d just have to walk it off. There was still work to be done, after all. There was always work to be done.

Speaking of which, he needed to think about what he was going to tell Seth, considering he was on his way to his office. Deciding what the press would find out was always a careful consideration— though this was a fairly simple breakdown, all things considered: seven hostages, held as collateral in negotiations for reduced military strong-arming. Diplomatic avenues had failed, so the military had gone in. Three terrorists killed, five taken alive, and the hostages were unharmed. Physically, at any rate. Aaron had to wonder if any of them had nearly had their fingers broken, or been threatened with a beating, or had a gun held to their temple and told to comply or they’d get their head blown off—

God, he was not feeling well. Aaron ground to a halt, smoothing a shaky hand across his face. It came away practically dripping. Feeling properly disgusted with himself, Aaron mopped up as much of the sweat as he could against his sleeve before forcing himself to walk the last few metres to Seth’s office. More than anything he wanted to sit down, but he was already there. He could make it through one quick meeting. He knocked on the open door, and Seth looked up at him with a cheery grin and an even cheerier voice as he informed Aaron he looked like half-baked hell.

“Just the heat,” Aaron said. Just those three words were an unexpected chore, as he realised just how tight his breath was coiled in his chest. Seth looked momentarily befuddled, but said nothing about it; merely straightened in his chair expectantly. He was, of course, waiting for a debrief—perfectly normal. Aaron tried to make himself feel the same, even if his throat seemed to be closing up; like an asthma attack, like dirt filling up his lungs, like pure, inexplicable terror. What the hell was wrong with him?

Haltingly, almost painfully, Aaron started to speak, forcing himself with every fibre in his body to keep his voice even. He could feel himself slowing down, lagging dumbly as he surreptitiously glanced at the pad in his hand, scrawled with notes that had always been intended for Seth, not himself. But as an odd, foggy sort of haze began to swallow his mind, he needed something to keep his thoughts on track as he reached his last point.

“T-the ho....” Aaron began, and then trailed off. His breath sounded choppy to his own ears, barely scraping its way out of his throat, and his heart—it was squeezing like a clenched fist. “The h...host...The h...Uh...’ His stomach dropped as he felt his tongue trip. His stutter. An awful relic of his childhood. He’d trained himself out of it before he was twelve—or he thought he had. It only ever came out if he was insanely drunk, or insanely upset. Right now, he shouldn’t be either.

Seth was frowning now, tensed as if ready to spring up from his seat. Aaron closed his eyes.

“....The h-hostages are fine,” he finally got out, choked through gritted teeth, and his hand went up to ghost over the knot of his tie, loosening it with a rough tug. It didn’t do any good. Vaguely, he registered that Seth was saying something-probably something like _are you okay_?- but it was hard to hear anything over the rattling beat in his ears. He was very clearly not okay though. Using the last ounce of calm he had, Aaron tried to distance himself from his malfunctioning body, cataloguing his symptoms with an objective eye. He couldn’t stop trembling, he was sweating his own body weight, as he put a hand to his chest he could feel his heartbeat straining through his shirt, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get a breath in.

And, he realised with nightmarish clarity, he was going to die.

“I think I’m having a h...” Aaron said slowly, and he thumped his hand down on Seth’s desk. “H...h-heart attack.”

Behind closed eyelids, Aaron heard the sounds of movement which he hoped were Seth dialling for an ambulance, but instead he only sensed footsteps rounding the desk, and Seth’s quiet sigh.

“No, you’re not,” Seth said, and Aaron blinked his eyes open confusedly. His friend was standing in front of him, eyes full of soft sympathy, and he still wasn’t doing anything. With panic continuing to balloon inside his chest, Aaron reached for the receiver on the desk, but Seth deftly stopped his hand.

“You’ve gotta trust me, Aaron,” he urged. “You’re going to be fine.” He had Aaron’s wrist in a loose grip, with the other hand landing on his shoulder in what was likely supposed to be a comforting gesture, but for some inexplicable reason the thought of contact left Aaron screaming inside. He roughly shrugged the touch off, and Seth held his hands up as if to show he wasn’t armed. He was still standing close, though, still talking in a soft murmur; like he was approaching a stray dog.

“Just breathe,” he was saying. “Come on—in through the nose, out through the mouth.”

Despite his better instincts, Aaron found himself following Seth’s direction. He sucked in an aching breath and spluttered it out again, feeling what he could only imagine drowning was like. His heart seized. _This wasn’t going to work_. His eyes tore desperately towards the phone again, but Seth directed his attention back with a firm voice, cutting through the foam of panic.

“Focus on me,” he said. “Focus on my voice, and take deep breaths.” He sucked in an exaggerated puff of air as if to demonstrate, gesturing for Aaron to do the same.

Aaron swallowed roughly, pushing down that all encompassing terror, and he focused on nothing but Seth. The sight of his friend was a reassuring sight; a sharp contrast to to backdrop behind his eyelids which painted an image of harsh sunlight, a memory of dense Cuban jungle. Slowly, as he forced air in and out, he could feel his lungs opening back up, fraction by fraction. Breath in, breath out, all under Seth’s watchful eye, and Aaron felt a little less like he was about to drop dead.

Seth was smiling a little now as Aaron’s breaths began to even out. “Feeling better?”

Muted, Aaron just nodded.

He let the tension built up in his frame roll out all at once, sagging against Seth’s desk as he finally took a breath that didn’t feel like an effort. His heart was still pounding, but it was nowhere near to alarming anymore. “Okay,” Seth said encouragingly. “You’re okay.”

He was okay. It was hard to believe. He had been convinced he was about to collapse, but you couldn’t wind yourself down from a heart attack with deep breathing. Whatever that was, it was a mystery.

Aaron peeled away from Seth and the desk, crossing to the other side of the room without any real purpose in mind. He just had to get his thoughts in order. Gingerly, he massaged his temple. It was clammy now from the dried sweat still clinging to it. “That was strange,” he said slowly, testing out speech. Thank god, his stutter had disappeared. “I...don’t know what that was.”

He still had his back turned as he heard Seth say, simply, “You were having a panic attack.”

Aaron jerked his head around. “No,” he said immediately. “No, it was just...” He trailed off, at a loss. Could he have just been overwhelmed by the heat? That had never happened before, but Aaron knew enough about panic attacks to know that it couldn’t possibly have been that. Panic attacks were for people who couldn’t control their emotions. That sort of thing just didn’t happen to him.

“Heart beating out of your chest?” Seth asked bluntly. “Unable to take a breath? Feeling so terrified you’re half convinced you’re about to drop dead?”

Aaron’s jaw worked silently around the urge to retort, but no words came to him. Seth nodded gravely, still with that look of sickening sympathy on his face. It was suddenly a little hard for Aaron to look at, prickling with discomfort as he was. At the very least, Seth hadn’t brought up the stuttering.

“What happened?” he asked, all careful curiosity. Aaron tried to hide the deep breath he had to take.

“I was coming out of Command Ops,” he said dismissively. “We’d just wrapped up the hostage situation in Syria.” He glanced down at his notes, still in hand, lip curling into a grimace as he noticed the way his hand had left a greasy imprint of sweat that darkened the paper. “Everything had gone smoothly. I was coming to you, running over the details, and...” he shrugged. “Suddenly I couldn’t breathe.”

His thumb ran over a line of smudged ink. _7 hostages_ , it read. The word seemed to loom menacingly. He swallowed.

“Yeah, I bet,” Seth said, and left a pause that was probably supposed to be meaningful. “Must have...brought back some bad memories.”

Aaron folded his arms defensively, glaring a little now. He knew exactly what Seth was getting at. His friend waited a second before trying again. “You’ve never talked about what happened.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Aaron bit out. “That was over a year ago.”

“I don’t think there’s a statute of limitations on trauma—“

“Seth, just _drop it_ , alright?”

That came out harsh, probably harsher than was fair, but Aaron couldn’t manage kindness right now, not even when Seth was practically oozing it. Or maybe because of that—Aaron didn’t want to be some object of sympathy, because that would mean giving in to whatever that little breakdown was. Aaron toyed with the word in his head: _trauma_. It had crossed his mind before—how could it have not? He’d spent all those hours in Cuba reconciling with the fact that he was likely going to die there; shot dead in the sticky, dirty heat; and he’d never quite been able to forget that feeling since. So he’d cocooned himself in the numb warmth of steady acceptance; that, yes, this had happened to him, but now that it was over there was nothing to do but get on with things. He’d catapulted himself right past any sort of five stages—not of grief, nothing to grieve for—and landed on his feet, because what other choice did he have?

It was as simple as this: he wasn’t traumatised, because he didn’t have the time for it, not even when he and Hannah had gotten back, and she’d caught hold of his arm, said: “ _If it gets too bad_ —.” An offer, he’d thought, but also a warning. He’d smiled, nodded, and stubbornly turned away from his phone every time he woke up from nightmares of sunlight gleaming dully off the metal of a gun. Instead, he’d just get up and go to work.

Aaron was okay because he had to be okay.

No amount of snapping seemed to be able to shake Seth, though. He was still watching him— a little sterner, with his arms crossed as well—but still looking so goddamn understanding that it made Aaron want to yell at him again.

“Woah, hey,” he wheedled. “I just want to help. If this happens again-“

“It won’t,” Aaron bit out, and Seth just laughed tiredly. He looked at Aaron for a long, considering moment before he finally twitched out a nod, as though he’d come to a decision.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought the first time too,” he said quietly. “And the second. By the third I think I knew I was fooling myself, but hey—“ he shrugged, putting on an utterly wide, utterly fake smile. “I’m an optimist.”

Aaron had been prepared to walk out and just leave Seth with his notes, but that made him pause. He stared at his friend. He was still wearing that same disarming smile that Aaron had seen him sport so many times before, but now it seemed utterly alien to him.

“...You have panic attacks?”

Now, finally, Seth glanced away. “Yeah,” he said, shrugging tightly. “All the time.” He sighed. “I’m getting a handle on it now, but for the first few months after Taurasi, and then Emily.....” His eyes shifted back to Aaron then, knowing that he would understand. Aaron nodded stiffly. Emily’s betrayal; that had been another thing that he’d neatly stowed away in the back of his mind. Thinking about it made him as sick to his stomach as thinking about Cuba, realising how well she’d played them all, about how she’d played Aaron specifically, because—god help him—he’d still cared about her too much—

Yeah, Aaron could understand that kind of panic.

Seth could tell, clearly, and he gave him a sad smile. “Yeah,” he said again, and took a bracing breath. “I was having them almost every day. It was....man, it was bad.”

Aaron was still staring, as if by studying his friend’s face long enough he’d pick up on some sign of this that had evaded him so far—because how could he not have noticed this? It was true that the wear and tear of working for the White House left everyone looking like just a little bit of a disaster, and it was true that Aaron hadn’t been spending nearly as much time around Seth while working as NSA, but even with that, surely constant panic attacks would be impossible to miss.

Or, Aaron reflected sombrely, maybe not. Not if he’d been assuming all this time that Seth was just doing the same as him: forcing himself to be fine. It was probably what everyone did around here. Evidently, it wasn’t working so well for Seth. He swallowed down the taste of bitter regret.

“Like I said, I’m better now. Better-ish,” Seth said gently, breaking through Aaron’s moody reverie with a far more genuine smile, even if his eyes shifted away a little as he kept talking. “I’m, uh...I’m actually in therapy now, and I’m....Yeah, I’m working through it.”

The bitter bile of useless hindsight tasted even more sour as Aaron realised that even now, Seth was trying to reassure him, assuage his guilt. He shook his head furiously. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well, nobody did, really. I was hiding it from everyone.” Seth was fiddling intently with a pen cap on his desk like it was the most fascinating thing in the world, and that sense of unfamiliarity struck Aaron hard again. This was, he realised, the first time Seth had opened up to him—genuinely opened up, not masking his words with jokes—in a very long time.

“I...was ashamed. Sort of still am, I guess. I come from a family that prefers to keep mental health issues in the closet with our other skeletons.” He flicked the pen cap off the desk to land at Aaron’s feet, like he was passing the conch. Aaron stared down at it and then, with heavy footsteps, crossed the distance he’d put between himself and Seth, coming to lean beside him against the desk

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” he said quietly. Seth’s words had stirred an uncomfortable nostalgia in Aaron. Long before Cuba, long before D.C, he had learnt the art of compartmentalisation to a fine degree. It was a long respected Shore family tradition to keep your chin up in the face of adversity, to not let yourself be defined by the hurt that had been done to you. And as the oldest, he’d always had to stay in control no matter what; to be strong when his younger siblings couldn’t.

And where was that strength now? Aaron was beginning to feel sick again. Not the dizzying overload from before, but a subtle, creeping feeling through his gut. Everything that Seth was saying, he could have pulled out of his own head. How could he have known, except through feeling the same way? Except for _Aaron_ being the same; because now, with the cool touch of the office air conditioning on his skin, Aaron realised that it had never been the heat overwhelming him at all, it had only been him and his overreacting, out of control, _panicking_ mind—and all his excuses came undone at his feet. Aaron had been making a liar out of himself this whole time by believing that he was coping. How could he claim he was fine when he couldn’t even handle a crisis situation and a few bad memories? How could he say he was up to the task of working for the President if this was all it took for him to crumble? He stared stubbornly at the ground, head weighed down by sickening humiliation. This wasn’t who he wanted to be.

“Oh man,” he heard Seth sigh. “This is like looking in the world’s most depressing mirror. Alright, just stop spiralling for a minute and look at me.”

Reluctantly, Aaron dragged his head up. Beside him, Seth was frowning contemplatively. “So, not to brag,” he began, “but I’m a bit of an expert in this sort of thing now, so let me give you a bit of advice. That shame you’re feeling? I can’t tell you when it’s going to go away, but I can tell you that it’ll become a hell of a lot easier to deal with once you accept that you don’t deserve to feel that way.”

Aaron clenched his jaw. “I should be better—I _need_ to be better than this.”

“Bullshit,” Seth scoffed, and Aaron stared in surprise. “Aaron, have you ever sat down and tallied up every insane, life threatening, deeply traumatic disaster we’ve all gone through these last few years?” Seth cocked a sardonic eyebrow. “Well, don’t. I have, and I had to drown myself in half a bottle of bourbon afterwards. He sighed, tipped his head sideways, and Aaron followed his gaze to where it was trained on the photo of President Kirkman framed on the wall, the same one that was in every office. It was a good photo; Kirkman looked confident, quietly determined, steely—but for Aaron, who had known the man when he’d still been HUD Secretary, the ugly duckling of the Cabinet, it was impossible to un-see the fact that this was a man who had never chosen to be President. The photo, scattered through the White House, was a constant testament to this administration’s, as Seth had put it; insane, life threatening, and deeply traumatic beginning.

“We’re living through one of the most dangerous administrations in history, man,” Seth continued quietly, and this time when he laid a hand on Aaron’s shoulder, Aaron didn’t pull away. “The dam is gonna break for all of us eventually. Don’t feel ashamed that it’s happening for you now.”

Aaron ran a hand across his face, feeling a sudden stab of resentment towards how damn sensible Seth could be sometimes. “That makes sense,” he admitted grudgingly. “Doesn’t mean I like it.”

Seth chuckled. “Yeah, well, it’s my job to bring the bad news around here.” He shot Aaron a sideways look, and under the easy grin that he had fixed to his face again, Aaron could sense that same startling sincerity from before. “Hey, I’m sorry I never reached out to you after Cuba,” Seth said, and the hand on his shoulder squeezed a little before dropping away. “I guess I just took it at face value when you said that you were fine.”

Aaron shook his head—he couldn’t blame Seth for not realising he wasn’t fine, not when he couldn’t realise it himself. And certainly not when Aaron was just as guilty. “I’m sorry I didn’t reach out to you after Taurasi.”

Seth barked out a laugh. “We’re both godawful friends, aren’t we?”

“The worst,” Aaron agreed with the tiniest of smiles. He glanced back down to his hands, still far too clammy, and he almost felt the ghost of past tremors shake through them. His smile dimmed. “Do you think this’ll happen again?” he asked hesitantly. Whether or not he was entitled to shame was one thing, but at the end of the day Aaron couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else seeing him the way Seth had today.

There was a thoughtful hum beside him. “Maybe. Maybe not.” Aaron’ stomach seized. He remembered Seth’s words about having panic attacks nearly every day. The shaking, the racing heart, the awful sealing up of his throat—Aaron never wanted to go through that even one more time. He was grounded from his horror, though, by Seth’s returning hand as it subtly brushed across his shoulders in undeniable comfort. “But if it does,” Seth said, “or even if you just need to talk, you can come find me.” He shot Aaron a sparkling grin. “You can help me polish off the other half of that bourbon.”

“Thank you,” Aaron said, and he meant it.

“We have to look out for each other, right?”

Seth’s face was all warmth as he stepped back a little, reminding Aaron of how they’d managed to become friends in the first place amongst all the muck and misery they worked through every day, and he took a moment to kick himself for not appreciating his friend more. God knows he deserved it.

“Now, stop slacking off and get back to work. This country isn’t gonna run itself,” Seth said harshly, before the facade shattered almost instantly and he grinned with ridiculous boyishness. “That’s my impression of you—what do you think?”

Aaron finally felt able to laugh a little, and he shook his head. “Terrible.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Seth wordlessly took the notes from Aaron, tactfully not mentioning the sweaty fingerprints and crumpled edges, and sat back at his desk as though the last five minutes hadn’t transpired. This pretence, more than anything, Aaron was dizzyingly grateful for. He knew, without even having to ask, that Seth would never tell anyone about this. He went to the door, lingering for a second at the break between Seth’s office floor and the carpeted halls of the rest of the White House.

Aaron didn’t want to think about this happening again, about anybody else knowing what had happened today. In this place, he needed to be strong. But it was a small relief, knowing that if it ever did happen again, he knew he could find his way back here; and that was enough for Aaron to be able to walk out the door.

It was time to face the rest of the day.


End file.
